This bill establishes a NIST pilot program to create standardized documentation templates and guidelines for artificial intelligence models and their training data.
Sarah McBride
Representative
DE
The READ AI Models Act establishes a pilot program, managed by NIST, to create standardized documentation for artificial intelligence models and their training data. This initiative will develop a flexible template and technical guidelines, incorporating stakeholder input, to ensure transparency about AI model development. Following a review, NIST will report on the program's effectiveness and potentially establish permanent documentation standards.
New READ AI Models Act Mandates NIST Develop Standardized AI Documentation, Increasing Transparency
The new Resources for Evaluating and Documenting AI Models Act—or the READ AI Models Act—is all about getting a clear look under the hood of the artificial intelligence models we increasingly rely on. This bill directs the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to launch a pilot program focused on creating standardized documentation for AI models and their data. The goal isn't to regulate AI directly, but to make sure that when a new AI tool hits the market, we have a consistent, clear way to understand what it is, who made it, and what it knows.
Why Documentation Matters: The AI Recipe Book
Think of this as creating a mandatory nutrition label for AI. Right now, if you use a large language model or an AI tool at work, it can be tough to figure out basic facts, like when its training data was last updated. This bill aims to fix that by making NIST develop a structured, modular template for documentation (SEC. 2). This template could require developers to list things like the model’s name, the developer’s identity, the release date, and, critically, the knowledge cutoff date for the training data. If your AI assistant is making decisions based on data that’s two years old, you need to know that.
NIST isn't going to do this in a vacuum. The bill requires them to gather input from private sector companies, universities, and international standards bodies, and then publish a draft for at least 60 days of public comment. This means the people who actually build and use these systems will have a say in setting the standards, which is smart. It helps ensure the resulting guidelines are practical and based on industry best practices.
What This Means for Everyday Use
For the average person using AI tools—whether you’re a programmer using code completion or a small business owner using an AI chatbot for customer service—this bill promises greater transparency. If these standards are adopted, it will be easier to assess the reliability of an AI model before you integrate it into a critical workflow. For example, a marketing firm looking to use a new AI image generator could quickly check the documentation to see if the model has been trained on copyrighted material or if its knowledge base is too narrow for their needs. This standardization helps everyone compare apples to apples when choosing AI tools.
For the companies developing AI, this means a new administrative burden, but one that could ultimately benefit the industry by establishing clear expectations. They will need to track and document their models according to the NIST template. Since the program is initially framed as a pilot and aims to incorporate voluntary consensus standards, the initial impact should be manageable, but it sets the stage for future, potentially mandatory, documentation requirements down the road. After 12 months, NIST has to report back to Congress on how effective the pilot was and whether it should become a permanent fixture (SEC. 2).